


Balance

by indiefic



Series: Balance [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Curtis Everett is not Steve Rogers, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Not a Captain America fic, Other, but a Captain America fic, but they're more similar than you'd think, mentions of all the ways humanity can be just fucking awful, original fictional character who is mostly Peggy Carter, set in the Snowpiercer universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:24:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4792604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/pseuds/indiefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2031, on the eve of what will be called The Curtis Revolution, Curtis takes a time out to think about how monumentally fucked up his life is.</p><p>"This train is a closed ecosystem.  We must always strive for balance."<br/>- Wilford</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Eve of the Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> If you came here looking for Captain America/ Agent Carter, then this is not the fic you want. This is NOT a crossover fic. It is set firmly in the SnowPiercer world. But there's an original fictional character who is pretty much Peggy Carter. If Peggy Carter grew up in that totally messed up post-apocalyptic world. According to me.

**2031**

**The eve of the revolution**

 

He knew next to nothing about her.

 

But the things he did know were imprinted on him so deeply they would never leave.

 

Here in this rattling hell that passed for the world, there was nothing but stink and shit and misery. He knew precisely the depths to which humanity could sink, here, on the spinning edge of existence. He saw people beaten to death, starved to death.  He watched plagues lay waste to half the population, saw bad batches of protein blocks wipe out the sick and elderly.

 

He knew his place. He knew where they need to keep him.  At the back. At the bottom.  The tail.  The foot.

 

But wasn't life a bitch? Turned out even a shoe like him had some value to those fancy fucks at the front. Maybe their gene pool was stagnant already. Maybe she just prefered his stink to some fat fuck who’d never had to fight for anything in his life.

 

He had his own code of conduct, hard won.  He didn’t fuck girls.  He didn’t do anything that could result in more train babies.  He understood how others did, how the loneliness and desperation could drive you to search out even the tiniest bit of comfort or contact.  But he couldn’t.  Not after everything he’d seen.  Not after everything he’d done.  He couldn’t watch some other poor shit, every bit as retched as himself, give birth in this stinking squalor, knowing that the kid had no life, no hope.  He’d seen too many kids die, or be pulled out of count, and taken away, never to be seen again.  He knew far worse had happened to others.  He’d _done_ far worse to others.

 

So, he took himself out of that cycle.  Walled himself off.

 

He wanted to hate her. Sometimes he succeeded, but never for long. The hate would sustain him until she crawled into his bunk at night or until the guards pulled him out of line and tossed him in some quiet closet.  And then she was there and he would give her anything she wanted so long as he could touch her.

 

Lucky for him all she ever wanted was his time and his cock.  They were pretty much all he had.

 

She smelled so good, like flowers and soap. She tasted like what he thought might be mint. She felt so soft that he just wanted to sink into her forever.  

 

She wasn’t for him.  He understood that the first time he saw her.  Her skin was golden and he knew that she saw the sun.  She might as well have been a completely different species from him.

 

He was pretty sure the first time she found him it was a mistake. He still doesn't know how or why she was there. Maybe she was bored. Maybe that was what passed for adventure if you were a kept woman from the front of the train.  

 

She seemed startled to find him. Maybe she was going to chicken out. Maybe she was expecting someone else. But Gilliam had sent him there, to that deserted bunk at the end of the car.

 

She didn't speak. All she did was touch him and he was lost.

 

He saw her a lot at first. Had her a lot. She was the first bit of joy in his life for as long as he could remember and he lost himself in her for weeks.

 

And then she disappeared. A year at least.  And he hadn't understood.  Not a bit.

 

Not until he saw her again. Saw the network of stretch marks marring her once perfect skin. She had his kid. That was why she needed him.  At least he knew.  That was more than he had before.

 

He tried, then, to talk to her, tried to find out about her life, about the baby. A frown puckered between her brows and she answered him in French, which didn't do him a fucking bit of good. But he always suspected that she understood him.  He figured maybe it was his penance.  Maybe he didn’t get to know anything about babies after the things he’d done.

 

He did make sure of one thing, though.  He got her name. _Anna_.  And she had his.   _Curtis_.

 

It took longer the second time. Months instead of weeks. He had more time to learn what pleased her, what would set her on fire.  Then she was gone, as abruptly as the first time.  And he couldn’t help imagining some fat fuck grunting on top of her while she was heavy with his child.

 

He never asked Gilliam why he sent him to that bunk.  He thinks maybe Gilliam thinks this can even his balance sheet, by bringing more people into this shithole of a world.  He knows it will never even out. He can't ever make up for the lives he took.

 

But if she wants his kids, God damn him, because he'll give them to her.  Even with all the blood on his hands.

 

There are three now, he's pretty sure. Two girls and a boy, admitted in one of her weak moments when she couldn't keep up her pretense of ignorance. A long time ago, he resigned himself to the fact that he would never see them, that they would never know who their father really was. That really hasn’t changed.  Even with the coming revolution.  He will fight.  He will do everything in his power to take the engine.  But he’ll probably end up dead.

 

In his weak moments, he does wonder.  What would it be like if he could take the engine?  What would happen if he could take all that was his?

 

He’ll probably never know.


	2. The Night After the Counterattack in the Ekatarina Tunnel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set about midpoint during the movie. Most of the dialog is directly from the movie.

Curtis lays there in the dark, next to Gilliam.  He can’t sleep.  Edgar is dead.  Killed by a man with a knife because Curtis couldn’t save him.  He winces.  Because he _chose not to_ save Edgar.  Because he made a strategic decision to go after Mason, rather than rescue Edgar.

 

It was the right decision.  Curtis knows that.  Having Mason as a prisoner gives them a clear advantage.  Without that nasty cunt, they hadn’t stood a chance.  Now ... maybe.  

 

But it doesn’t make Edgar any less dead.  Or make Curtis feel any less guilty.

 

Gilliam finally speaks.  “You still determined to push ahead?”

 

“Of course,” Curtis replies.  “We’re not even halfway.”  As if he could stop after what it already cost them.  There is no going back.

 

Gilliam sighs. “You already got further than anyone else.  Further than McGreggor four years ago.”

 

Curtis frowns.  “Ten cars.  Twenty cars.  It doesn’t matter unless we make it to the engine.  They’ll just regroup, attack us again.  We have to pull ‘em out by the roots.”

 

“But so many have been killed,” Gilliam says sadly.  “We’ve lost _so_ many.”

 

Like Edgar.  “I know,” Curtis replies quietly.

 

“They’re exhausted,” Gilliam says.  “I told them to wash themselves so that I could assess the damage.”

 

Slowly, Curtis pushes himself into a sitting position.  He hunches there, hand on top of his head, futilely seeking to comfort himself. “Let me go ahead,” he says quietly.

 

Gilliam shifts, pushing himself into a sitting position.

 

“I got Mason now,” Curtis says.  “I can move a lot faster.  You stay here with the wounded.  Guard the prisoners.  Let me take the engine.  I’ll call for you to lead us.”

 

Gilliam shakes his head.  “Stop it, Curtis,” he chides softly.  “Why are you doing that?  You know very well that you’re already our leader.  You have to accept that now.”

 

Curtis does know it.  But he doesn’t like it.  He rejects it with every bit of himself.  “How can I lead if I have two good arms?”

 

Gilliam reaches out, taking his wrist.  He pulls back the cuff of his shirt and studies the scar across Curtis’s forearm with his gnarled fingers.  “It’s faded a lot.”

 

Curtis pulls his arm away, rolls the sleeve back down, curling in on himself.

 

“Better to have both arms,” Gilliam says prosaically.  “Can’t do a lot with one, you know.  Especially when you hold a woman.  Much better to have two arms, wouldn't you agree?”

 

Curtis looks at him and finally finds the nerve to ask.  “Why did you send me to that bunk four years ago?”

 

Gilliam smiles sadly, nodding.  “I wondered when you would finally get around to asking,” he says.  “She’s lovely, isn’t she?  Such a spitfire.”  He sighs.  “You seemed so lost.  Both of you.  I thought ... perhaps, you could find something in each other to keep you going.”

 

Curtis frowns, somehow shocked to know it was so calculated on Gilliam’s part.  Curtis had always assumed he just blundered into something and got lucky.  “Who is she?” he asks.

 

Gilliam is quiet for a long time.  “My daughter,” he finally says.  “Anna.”  He sighs.  “She looks so much like her mother.  Or she did the last time I saw her.  It’s been ... _eightteen_ years,” he says, seemingly shocked by the number.  He looks at Curtis.  “Everything I have done in this life was to keep her safe,” he says.  “I suspect you understand some of that by now, though, don’t you?”

 

Curtis shakes his head.  “How did you - “

 

Gilliam sighs.  “I have three grandchildren,” he says.  He reaches over and pats Curtis’s leg.  “I’m glad it was you, Curtis.  Better you than the alternative.  You were always the son I wished I had.  You’re stronger than you know.  Stronger than all of us.”

 

Curtis doesn’t have any idea how to respond.  He’s overwhelmed, shocked.  Gilliam knew?  He knew all of it.  This whole time.  

 

“When you get to the narrow bridge, big gate with a W on it,” Gilliam says darkly.  “Wilford is behind that.  Don’t let Wilford talk.  Cut out his tongue.”

 

END CHAPTER


	3. Across the Narrow Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a lot of the dialog is taken directly from the movie. Changes as necessary to accommodate my original character and plotline.

Curtis sits there, staring at Nam, the cigarette burning to a stub between his fingers.  “A month later, Wilford’s soldiers brought those protein blocks.  We’ve been eatin’ that shit ever since.”  He shakes his head, aware of the tears on his face.  Aware of the shame he wears like a badge.  He’s never told anyone the words he just told to Nam.  He wonders if it was a fair trade for the last cigarette in the world.

 

Curtis fought his way here, past the narrow bridge.  He’s made it all the way to the front.  His dreams of being a hero are gone.  Everyone is gone.  Edgar.  Gilliam.  Tanya.  Grey.  All dead.  There has been no sign of Anna.  None at all.  It’s a fucking train.  Where could they hide her?  She has to be dead.  

 

They killed Gilliam to punish him.  They probably killed Anna too.  Maybe his children as well.  He looked at all the kids he passed, searching for Timmy, searching for Andy.  But he’s looked for his own children too.  He thinks he would know them.  But all of the children are too old, too fair, too asian to be his.

 

“Eighteen years I’ve hated Wilford,” Curtis says.  “Eighteen years I’ve waited for this moment.  And now I’m here.  Open the gate.  Please.”

 

Nam sighs.  “Thank you for your story, Curtis,” he says.  “But I don’t want to open the gate.  You know what I really want?  I want to open the gate.”

 

Nam nods to the gate with the W. “But not _this_ gate.”   He points to the door, so long unused it appears to be part of the wall.  “ _That_ one,” he says.

 

Curtis sits there as Nam explains that it’s a door to the outside.  He explains what the Inuit woman told him about ice and snow, how their frozen world is at a tipping point and with the slightest touch, it will go over.  It’s starting to melt.  They can reclaim their world.  Fuck Wilford and his fucking train.  They can be humans again.

 

Curtis watches him smash that stinking kronole into a mass, telling him that he’s been blind.  Nam has hoarded kronole for years, but not in search of the kind of oblivion Curtis thinks.  “It’s a fucking bomb, you idiot,” Nam says.  And Nam intends to use it to escape the train.

 

Curtis is on this feet, trying to talk Nam down when that cunt, Claude, opens the fucking gate and shoots Nam.

 

“Curtis Everett,” Claude says, “I’ve been asked to extend a formal invitation from Mr. Wilford to join him for dinner.  After you.”  The politeness of her invitation is undercut by the pistol she has pointed at him.

 

Hands raised, Curtis walks through the gate and into Wilford’s lair.

 

“Curtis.  Is that you?” Wilford asks.  “Curtis, dear boy, come in.  Let’s take a look at you.  You hungry?  You did a man’s work coming all this way.  You are the first human being to have walked the total length of this train.  Tail to engine.  Did you know that.  Well done.  Bravo.”

 

Curtis stares at him.  He’s standing there cooking a fucking steak in this pristine compartment, like he doesn’t have a fucking care in the world.  Curtis doesn’t know what he expected, but he knows this is not it.  Some skinny old white guy in a bathrobe is not how he pictured the benevolent Wilford in his sacred engine.  

 

Claude shoves him and Curtis sits at the table.

 

“None of your people have ever been here, to the engine,” Wilford says.  He doesn’t seem upset or unpleasant.  He does, however, seem like a fuck.  And probably crazy.  “I’ve never been to the tail section.”

 

“Why not?” Curtis snaps.  “Too dirty for you?  Don’t want to rub against the vermin of the tail section?”

 

Wilford frowns at him, like he’s some idiot child.  “Do you think my station is without its own drawbacks?  It’s noisy.  And it’s lonely.”

 

Curtis wants to strangle him with his bare hands.  “Right,” he says.  “Steaks.  Plenty of room.  This whore,” he nods to Claude, “to bring you anything you want.”

 

“Curtis,” Wilford explains, like the kindly uncle Curtis never wanted.  “Everyone has their preordained position and everyone is in their place.   _Except you_.”

 

Oh, Curtis knows this logic.  “That’s what people in the best place say to people in the worst place.  There’s not a soul on this train who wouldn’t trade places with you.”

 

Wilford looks at him.  “Would you trade places with me?”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“Curtis, dear boy,” Wilford says, sounding tired.  “The fact is we are all stuck inside this blasted train. We are all prisoners in this hunk of metal.”  He motions to the steak.  “Medium rare?”  He removes it from the pan and sets it on a plate.  

 

“And this train is a closed ecosystem,” he continues.  “We must always strive for balance.  Air.  Water.  Food supply. The population must always be kept in balance.  For optimum balance, however, there have been times when more radical solutions were required.  When the population needed to be reduced rather _drastically_.”

 

Curtis sits there as Wilford sets a plate in front of him.  Steak and vegetables. Curtis can’t even begin to process the absurdity of the situation.  He’s spent the last eighteen years locked in that stinking metal box with hundreds of other retches, eating blocks of ground up bugs and dead people.  And now, suddenly, he’s Wilford’s dinner guest.

 

Wilford sits, carefully cuts his steak and takes a bite.  “We don’t have time for true natural selection,” he says.  “We would all be hideously overcrowded and starve waiting for that.  The next best solution is to have individual units kill off other individual units.  From time to time we’ve had to stir the pot, so to speak.  The Revolt of the Seven.  The McGreggor riots. The Great Curtis Revolution.”  He smiles darkly at Curtis.  “A blockbuster production with a devilishly unpredictable plot.  Who could have predicted your counterattack with the torch in the Ekaterina tunnel?  Pure genius.  That wasn’t what Gilliam and I had in our plan.”

 

Curtis sits there, sure he misheard.  “ _What_?”

 

Wilford frowns at him again, like the idiot child.  “Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t know.  Gilliam and I.   _Our_ plan.”

 

“ _Gilliam_?”

 

“Gilliam,” Wilford says, stronger, stressing his point.  “The front and the tail are supposed to work together.  He was more than a partner, really.  He was my friend.”

 

Curtis shakes his head.  “Bullshit.  I don’t believe you.”

 

Wilford shrugs, smirking.  “Our original agreement was for the insurgency to end at the Ekatarina tunnel.  And all of the survivors would go back to the tail section to enjoy much more space.”

 

“You’re a fucking liar,” Curtis snaps.  “Gilliam would never do that.”

 

Wilford shrugs, as if it now makes no difference to him whether or not Curtis chooses to believe.  “It all worked out in the end,” he says smugly.  “Your counterattack actually made the insurgency ten times more exciting. Unfortunately, the front suffered more losses than anticipated and Gilliam ...” He pantomimes a gun to his head.  “Had to pay the price.  Ironic, isn’t it?  How people dramatically cross that thin barrier between life and death.  Now there’s just one last thing for us to do.  Tally up the numbers.”

 

Curtis sits there as Wilford talks into the receiver and then confers with Claude about percentages.  Acceptable percentages of the population which must be culled.  LIke they’re fish in his fucking aquarium rather than living human souls.

 

Then Wilford abruptly stops.  “Spare eighteen,” he says.  “To celebrate our eighteenth year.”  He holds the receiver out to Curtis and Curtis can hear the gunfire, the screams.  Wilford's henchmen are massacring the tail section inhabitants.

 

“ _Your_ people,” Wilford says darkly, his satisfaction clear.

 

Curtis jumps up from his chair and Claude fires the pistol.  The shot goes wide, echoing around the compartment.

 

“Goddammit Claude!” Wilford yells.  “Mind the engine!”  He looks around and sighs.  He glances at Curtis conspiratorially.  “She’s getting sensitive recently.”  Curtis is fairly certain he means the engine and not Claude, but he’s not entirely sure.

 

Wilford is back to being amused.  “Just relax,” he says to Curtis.  “Calm down.  Boy, now I can see what Gilliam meant.  He told me you were brilliant and clever, but always so tense. When’s the last time you got laid? It's been a while, hasn't it?  Well, she had to heal from the last brat.  Like Gilliam said, holding a woman is much better with two arms.  Even if she’s not really yours.”

 

Curtis’s blood runs cold.

 

“Claude,” Wilford says, “if you wouldn’t mind bringing in my wife.”

 

Curtis sits there, rooted to the chair.  Wilford watches him, but his expression is unreadable.  Curtis hears footsteps, sets of them, some adult and some clearly children and he knows what he will see when he turns.  But he has to turn.  He looks at her, standing there.  She holds a baby in her arms.  The other two children, a girl, taller, and a boy, shorter, both with dark hair and eyes, clutch at her legs.

 

“Ah, yes,” Wilford says.  “Do come in, Anna.  I think it’s time we all met properly, don’t you?”

 

If looks could kill, Wilford would be dead right now.  Stiffly, Anna crosses the room to Wilford, taking a seat in the chair as he directs.  She’s seated between him and Wilford, the children standing next to her.

 

“She doesn’t talk to you, does she?” Wilford asks Curtis.  He sighs.  “Such a blessing, really.  You have no idea.  She can be such a venomous bitch.”  He reaches out to stroke her hand and Anna pulls it back, abruptly, glaring at him.  He smiles at her.  “You’re nicer now, though, aren’t you, my love?  Now that you have the children to worry about.”

 

She clutches the baby tighter, moves the other children around the far side from Wilford, so they’re standing between Anna and Curtis.

 

Wilford raises an eyebrow at her.  “Sure you want to do that, love?  You know his history with children, especially the little ones.”

 

Anna doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react at all.  Curtis knows that she already knows, though he doesn't know how.

 

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Wilford asks Curtis.  “You should have seen her at sixteen.  She was ...” he smiles.  “ _Exquisite_.”  He frowns.  “She’s somewhat worse for the wear, these days.  But so much more tractable that it’s almost worth it to watch her push out your bastards.”

 

Curtis can see the muscles in Anna’s jaw standing out in harsh relief.  He can see her hands shaking.

 

“She’s a real piece of work, this one,” Wilford says, reaching out and stroking Anna’s cheek.  She closes her eyes in revulsion.  “So like her father.”  He looks at Curtis.  “She hated him, of course.  But so very like him.  So good at reading people, at knowing exactly how to find their pressure points.  Mean as a snake.”  He sighs, leaning back in his chair, looking at her with a frown.  “You have any idea what it’s like to try and fuck a woman while she tells you how small your cock is?”

 

He looks at Curtis and Curtis realizes he expects an answer.  Curtis just looks at the children, standing there.  The girl is three at the most, the boy younger.  He hopes to god they don’t understand what’s going on.

 

Wilford sighs.  “We tried for years, didn’t we, my love?”  He brushes her hair back, tucking it behind her ear.  “I think there was one ... _yes?_ ”  She won’t look at him.  “She got rid of it, of course.  Nearly killed herself in the process.  But she’s nothing if not determined.”

 

He smiles.  “But then Gilliam,” he says, sighing in satisfaction.  “Gilliam had the brilliant idea to put you two together.”  Wilford claps his hands together.  “Not that I enjoy being a cuckold, mind you, but sometimes we must endure for the greater good.”  He reaches out again, touching Anna.  “I doubted him.  I doubted Gilliam, but he knew.  I figured you’d get rid of Curtis’s bastards just like you did mine, but no, you kept them.”  He looks at the children.  “And they’ve become so _very_ important to us all.”

 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Curtis demands.

 

“I am old,” Wilford says, sighing.  “I want you to take my station.”  He touches Anna.  “With _all_ that it entails.”

 

Curtis’s brow furrows.  Is this fucking lunatic really saying what he thinks he’s saying?

 

“It’s what you always wanted,” Wilford says.  “It’s what Gilliam wanted too.  You must tend the engine.  Keep her humming.  The train is the world, Curtis, we the humanity.  And now you have the sacred responsibility to lead all of humanity.”  He looks at the children.  “Without you Curtis, humanity will cease to exist. You’ve seen what people do without leadership.  They devour one another.  This is what Gilliam saved you for.  Curtis, this is your destiny.”

 

At Curtis’s back, the gate opens and Claude goes to investigate.  Curtis sits there, looking at Anna, at the children.  Wilford could do it.  He could give all of this to Curtis.  

 

He looks at Anna and she finally turns to meet his gaze.  She looks so sad, so angry, but also resolute.  She shakes her head.  “This is why Father wanted you to cut out his tongue,” she says.

 

Wilford backhands her, sending her spinning out of the chair.  She falls to the floor, managing to keep the baby clutched to her chest.  Curtis is up in an instant, crouched over her.  Before he has time to do anything, Yona runs into the car.  

 

“Curtis, the match!” Yona yells.

 

Curtis looks at Yona and in that instant, sees his entire life spread out before him.  His children’s lives in the balance.  

 

He could stay here, at the front.  He could have Anna and the children.  He could tend the engine, have midnight phone calls with a conspirator at the back of the train and discuss acceptable levels of chaos and fear.

 

Or he could refuse and doom them all.

 

Yona moves past him in one of her fugue states, as he crouches there.  She starts to pry at one of the floor tiles.  Curtis makes sure Anna is okay.  She nods, pushing him toward Yona.  He helps Yona pull up the tile and looks into the void to find Timmy there, crouched within the machinery.

 

“The engine is eternal,” Wilford says sagely.  “Not so with all of her parts.  That part went extinct recently.  Luckily the tail section supplies us with a steady stream of children.  They have to be small, under five.”

 

Curtis looks up at him, aghast.

 

“We all have our part to play,” Wilford says.

 

Behind him, Anna tips over the table, kicking at the legs.  Wilford just watches her, clearly irritated, but not enough to intervene.  Curtis figures he’s learned over the years that it’s a futile process trying to teach Anna her place.

 

Curtis stands and helps her, breaking off the solid wooden leg.  He takes it and jams it into the machinery swirling around Timmy, stopping the cogs so he can pull the boy free.  Alarms start to blare and lights flash.  Curtis hands Yona the remaining match and she runs back toward the narrow bridge and the lump of kronole.

 

Wilford just seems to wither away.  His eternal engine is doomed.  No one is in their preordained place.  His perfect balance is irrevocably upset.

 

Yona drags Nam, bleeding, back inside the car before closing the gate.  They all huddle together in the middle of the car, Curtis, Anna, the children, Timmy, Yona, Nam, waiting for the bang.

 

END CHAPTER

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Eternal Order](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6305494) by [indiefic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/pseuds/indiefic)
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